Offshore "Nutrition"......?

[phil444]

Afternoon all,
I've searched this and a couple of other forums but haven't as yet found any posts about people working offshore and still trying to bodybuild.
So.....
My situation is that I work on a drilling rig offshore West Africa for 28 days,and then I have 28 days off. On the rig there's a pretty basic gym (but what else do you need, right?) so my workouts are sound, but the food is to put it bluntly, shite.
I quaff as much protein as I can and have a couple of shakes per day too, but invariably I either put fat on (with muscle), or lose muscle mass if eat too little, and I work 12 hour shifts, so a low-carb option's a bit restrictive. And I don't want to solely rely on MRP shakes.
Anyway, if anybody has any thougts or similar experience, crack on.
Phil

[WOOO]

it's tough... i used to work very long shifts... i started the 4 shakes a day routine... each shake is 50g of whey isolate... that way even if i miss a solid meal i will get the protein i need

[youandme]

Not sure what they feed you on the rigs. What do they have, buffet lines or cafteria style food?

Simply have to invest in buying bars, and pre made drinks by ABB.

OR make your own bars.
Do a search on homemade protein bars, plenty of recipes out there, some great ones with granolaalso so they have a crunch.
Also make sure to get a protein powder with all types of protein so your "stable"
A good mrp that mixes fast and taste good with good fats is muscle- links muscle meals.You can shake it in a shaker.
Also might want to look into making your own jerky.

[phil444]

I work a midnight to midday shift, so for example, I'll have (lucky today) steak and rice at 12am, then at 6am other than greasy fried bacon (well it's just pig fat really) and reconstituted plastic "sausage" and the like, there's usually a re-hashed version of the 12am meal but in gravy. (like that makes all the difference) At 12pm then, is usualy another main meal, which i tend to keep the carbs down a bit on, train straight after, have a protein shake and then hit the sack ready to do it all again tomorrow.

A lot of the time though we have runs of good food, like chicken breasts for "breakfast", beef in a gravy-type-stuff for "lunch" or steak for "dinner" (meal times all being relative to my shift) and those of us who do work out tend to eat as much of the decent food as we can when it's available, to make up for the less good days - e.g. scrawny chicken legs and wings, dodgy rubbery squid, and this weird ultra-thin beef in a thick layer of breadcrumbs, deep fried.

And having just re-read that and thinking "actually, it deosn't sound too bad" - be aware that most of the food is fried, and if it's not it seems to be sat in a pan of butter when it's served.

[youandme]

That's how working enviroments are you would think they would want to keep employees healthy, but these companies just sign onto gyms, instead of chaning the cafeteria.
There is no real way of getting around the fried food, when I played football they would feed us the dumbest shit fried chicken, oiland pasta, beef patties and spaghetti I guess they thought protein and carbs plus heavy all you can stuff Pb and honey and bannana sandwiches,on the most white bread I've ever seen,it was like putting cotton candy in your mouth.
When you get your meal you have toget extra napkins, and squueze all the grease and butter from whatever meat you get, sometimes when it is beefs, you can get a bowl and then run it through how water that will take some stuff out,then the same with the veggies they throw loads of lard, not butter. butter is expensive they use that in the food. I used to use a pasta drainer,just took it down with me and put my food in it,lol.  The whole team started to do the same once they caught on.
The sausage has 8 grams of protein per patty and 17g of fat,4 grams sat fat, once I strung it out I figured it went down to 10.
The gravy has loads of butter in it, and then lots of grease, I used to watch em make it, they would throw the grease from either the bacon or the sausage, to start it off.
Once I stopped all carbs and then began to eat the food, and took advantage of the meats and bacon,  and salad bar cheese, everything went fine.
Also it helpes to make friends with the kitchen staff, they used to save me all kinds of great meats, when they were closing down.

[phil444]

Prime, prime example yesterday, by the way, really made me chuckle - for breakfast there were cheeseburgers (yum yum, just what you feel like when you've just dragged yourself out of bed) so i had a couple of the beef patties and some pasta, and then for lunch? Beef patties in a tomato pasta-type sauce......... Not even cut up into a different shape or cooked differently, just leftover patties in a pan of sauce. Magnificent.

Youandme, i do that though, squeeze the fat out of stuff as much as possible, and any time there's steak on the menu, the head chef normally has a plateful of them dished up by the time i breathe in to say "beef por favor". At least when I get home i'm grateful for a salad and some tuna !!

[youandme]

Oh then also go to sams or costco and get the new tuna packets, it's the albacore tuna in the foil pouch, wish i had em back when.. That should be easy cause you can eat it out of the pouch.

Yeah there is not much else, I remember that also anytime it is the end of the month or beggining on the next month they start cooking leftover foods, it's fe'd up you go down the line and their is like everything from something that was cooked from the last few weeks.

Best  thing to do is to make the protein bars spend the day cooking em up in the kitchen I made 10 pans of them once made about 90 bars or so, and wrapped them up in a vac seal 10 per bag, made a great snack.